The smart city concept lacks a set of coherent criteria for evaluating its effectiveness as an urban management system, its compatibility with human rights principles, and its contribution to a democratic, participatory, social urban regime. The author explains why Lean Thinking principles can be applied to evaluate the ‘smartness’ of cities and serve as guidelines for improvement.
A smart city is a city that employs an array of information technologies for its urban management. These technologies gather, disperse, and use information to control different facilities and to facilitate communication and co-operation between its citizens. The smart city concept, however, lacks a set of coherent criteria for the evaluation of its effectiveness as an urban management system, of its compatibility with human rights principles, and of its contribution to a democratic, participatory, social urban regime. A clear set of criteria would also provide an aspiring smart city with practical guidelines and/or a roadmap to help it achieve its goals.
Lean Thinking is a method of designing, performing, and continuously improving the work process to produce better value for all stakeholders. The method is widely used by information and service organizations in both the private and public sectors.
This article shows that Lean Thinking principles can be applied to evaluate the performance of smart cities, and may serve as a practical management approach towards achieving smart city goals.
